Twitter suspends American far-right activists' accounts, cracks down on hate speech

[beingmused]

To anyone who feels like this is somehow unfair...

If the GOP was to make it part of their platform that 2+2=5, would that suddenly make math class biased for liberals? Would we suddenly have to start respecting that "viewpoint" equally with 2+2=4?

The point is, banning hate speech is not a "political" act. Its an attempt at basic, universal decency. Just because the right wing has decided to embrace the denial of human rights does not mean that it has become an open question that Twitter or any other organization has to entertain or pander to. That's false equivocation of the worst kind. Its the fault of the ring wing for politicizing something that should be taken for granted.

[Venant]

I would say preventing people from being harmed is a pretty universal principal, wouldn't you? Some people are more at risk than others (like statistically and objectively.) so they are made a protected class. It's ridiculous to wax poetical about what a universal principle is as people are being abused or even killed for who they are.

Nobody should be physically attacked or killed in such an unjust manner. What do you mean by 'more at risk' though? The state should equally defend the universal rights of everyone. People also have a right to self defense, and in the United States there is the 2nd amendment, so these people can arm themselves to defend against being violently attacked.

Furthermore, specific threats of violence are something that we can build universal principles around. Personally, I would actually prefer somebody planning violence against me made public and specific threats so that I could take proper precautions, as opposed to not saying anything and walking up behind me in the grocery store and shooting me in the back of the head.

[Deleted]

No, they aren't.

Gay people are a protected class are they not? Queer is really just a blanket term for any gender or sexual minority who isn't quite sure what to call themselves. However they will almost always fall under a protected class.

Yes, they all have medical conditions - Its not a gender.

Well this isn't what you said you said they "weren't a thing." Intersex people are medical...rarities, but those rare occurences effect gender and make their gender not fall into the binary. So it is a matter of gender.

No its not, the absence of a sex drive does not constitute an orientation.

Asexuality is essentially what atheism is to religious belief and AFAIK atheism falls under the protected class of religious belief. So if it is not the same with asexuality it should be.

[veehro]

They do have freedom speech if they're talking among themselves in their basements. Not on Twitter. A private company can set its own rules.

so if a private company would start banning blacks from using their product that would be fine eh? And i am talking about a company who is not in the US and does not have to abide by US laws.

[Venant]

To anyone who feels like this is somehow unfair...

If the GOP was to make it part of their platform that 2+2=5, would that suddenly make math class biased for liberals? Would we suddenly have to start respecting that "viewpoint" equally with 2+2=4?

The point is, banning hate speech is not a "political" act. Its an attempt at basic, universal decency. Just because the right wing has decided to embrace the denial of human rights does not mean that it has become an open question that Twitter or any other organization has to entertain or pander to. That's false equivocation of the worst kind. Its the fault of the ring wing for politicizing something that should be taken for granted.

You do realize that your argument is the same rationale used for locking up homosexuals and lobotomizing promiscuous women? I could replace 'ban hate speech' with 'stone adulterers to death' and you would be making the argument used in many parts of the world today.

Also: appeal to authority/popularity

[Deleted]

Nobody should be physically attacked or killed in such an unjust manner. What do you mean by 'more at risk' though? The state should equally defend the universal rights of everyone. People also have a right to self defense, and in the United States there is the 2nd amendment, so these people can arm themselves to defend against being violently attacked.

As in people of certain minority groups are more likely to be attacked, killed or to commit suicide than other groups, relative to their populations. People face different struggles. The state should recognise that and help each group in the relevant ways.

Furthermore, specific threats of violence are something that we can build universal principles around. Personally, I would actually prefer somebody planning violence against me made public and specific threats so that I could take proper precautions, as opposed to not saying anything and walking up behind me in the grocery store and shooting me in the back of the head.

Well okay but even better would be to have neither. Hate speech encourages the latter and causes minorities to live in fear.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Ah - so very tolerant indeed - thank you. After all it was people like you that gave Trump the win.

I don't quite understand grouping everyone into singular, monolithic categories in an attempt to categorize people. This is especially so, as the same people who group all Trump supporters together under the labels of racist or xenophobe are themselves the ones who protest when a minority of the U.S. attempt to categorize all Muslims as terrorists or all Mexicans as rapists. The entire thing reeks of cognitive dissonance; you're OK with labelling entire groups when it fits your world view, but not when it fits with others.

[Celista]

I hate Muslims.
I hate republicans.
How do those fare?



which was precisely the point, because only the one got banned.
And as we live in a white supremacist society, that was obviously the one hating white people.


Sure it does - Rules of civil conduct is based on a mutual understanding of what is civil.
If calling your debate opponents a vile cunt is fair game to one actor, the one being called a vile cunt has all right to respond however that party wishes.
That's why not engaging is called the 'High road'.

It is definitely not acceptable to engage in hate speech about Muslims...is this really a question? We're going to have to agree to disagree for the latter half of your post, don't have time for a back-and-forth today. Although I will say that taking the "high road" is taught to children and it is expected that we engage in such behavior as adults, we do not teach that it is OK to treat people poorly because they do or say something poorly to us. This is the norm, not an exception to the norm.

[Annoying]

Yeah, that wasn't his claim.
His claim was 'Illegal' immigrants.
And as the crime rate of Illegal immigrants, by definition, is 100%, his claim is true.

Yes, stating self evident truths to people who have an aversion to truth invariably leads to responses that are not arguments.

Irony impaired.

Note that unlawful presence in the country is not a crime -- illegal entry is. So if someone enters the country legally with a visa, and that visa expires, they haven't committed a crime and aren't a criminal.

[Damajin]

No one should be surprised at a company like Twitter doing this, but as they attempt to curtail the message there are alternatives:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3065777/...-the-alt-right

Inside Gab: The New Twitter Alternative Championed By The Alt-Right

A dispatch from the new censorship-defying social network in the wake of "the purge" of alt-right users on Facebook and Twitter this week.

The purge is happening. At least according to the universe of alt-right users on social media: Many of them claim that in recent days their Twitter accounts have been suspended and that their posts on Facebook are not being promoted or shared like they used to. It’s all part of a crackdown on "fake news" in the wake of reports that misleading reports shared on Facebook and Twitter helped influence the election. To many, these efforts are an overdue attempt to maintain online civility. But to others it’s blatant censorship.

For those alt-right individuals and other social media refugees who feel that their views are suppressed, there’s a new social network that promises a digital space for completely free and unfettered communications. Gab, a platform that looks and feels like a combination of Twitter and Reddit, is meant to "put people first and promote people first," as it was described to me by its founder. And this week, it’s been attracting thousands of users, many of them alt-righters exiled from Facebook and Twitter, though its founder insists that it aims to expand beyond that community and build a more diverse audience. Even Richard Spencer, who leads the far-right National Policy Institute think tank and is widely credited with inventing the term "alt-right" had his Twitter account suspended on Tuesday and soon increased the frequency of his posts on Gab.

Gab is the brainchild of Andrew Torba, an adtech startup founder who now lives in Austin after a stint in Silicon Valley. He found the politically progressive atmosphere of the Bay Area to be stifling, making him uncomfortable about expressing his views, and he moved to Texas to help build his fledgling social network. He was once a member of Y Combinator (he was recently ousted), and has now taken on the mission of fixing what he sees as the censorship that plagues online spaces. The tipping point that pushed him to leave the tech bubble and start Gab came earlier this year, when he read that several Facebook employees had come forward to divulge that the network’s trending topics section was actively suppressing conservative news. "I knew I had to take action," Torba says.

So he created Gab, which is similar to Twitter in that users can only write a limited number of characters (up to 300) in a single post and also mimics Reddit in that these posts can be up-voted or down-voted.

What Is Gab?

Thus far the social network is in closed beta. Torba says it has about 56,000 users along with a waitlist of over 120,000. When Gab first launched in August, it got a little bit of press. But with the election now over there seems to be renewed interest in the platform. Torba tells me that this past Tuesday was the biggest day the site has seen for signups, with more than 5,000 people showing interest in that 24-hour period alone.

This surge in interest very likely has to do with the ongoing debate over fake news and offensive speech on Twitter and Facebook. Earlier this week, Twitter shut down many accounts deemed to be offensive or hateful. And Facebook reportedly has a renegade internal task force working to suppress "fake news," much of which was conservative content. On Gab, these steps are akin to censorship and are called "The Purge," and highlights the hypocrisy of supposedly open platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

According to Torba, the real issue with this crackdown is that what constitutes unacceptable conduct is subjective and depends on the eye of the beholder. "Hateful and harassment are subjective terms," he tells me. In his eyes it shouldn’t be a company’s job to decide what is offensive and what isn’t—especially if the ethos of the organization is to provide an open communicative platform. Gab gives users the ability to mute words they don’t like or accounts they don’t want to see, but the entire point is that it’s user-controlled. (Ironically, Gab’s moderation tools that allow users to mute specific words—sans the ability to block users—are similar to the steps Twitter just implemented to beef up its anti-harassment program.)

Gab’s logo is a green frog, which looks a hell of a lot like "Pepe," a meme that became the symbol of the alt-right movement. Torba insists that the logo was inspired by a Biblical passage from Exodus. He sees Gab as "releasing the frogs on the leaders of Big Social and what they’ve been doing… releasing the frogs on Silicon Valley." He adds that he once saw a YouTube video about an African frog who saved a bunch of tadpoles by digging a pathway to another channel, and this is what he believes he’s doing. Gab's chief communications officer, Utsav Sanduja, chimes that in ancient Mesopotamia frogs represented "fertility… creation, the birth of new life."
Can It Expand Beyond Its Core Audience?

Whether or not Gab is able to extend its appeal beyond the alt-right fringe—and become a true competitor to the giants of social media, as Torba told me he wants to do—is difficult to say. Gab, Torba insists, is "not for a specific group." He goes on to say that he’s been "proactively reaching out to folks in the center," and following the past week’s success he thinks the audience growth is going to continue to happen. I’ve been scanning the site for a few days and have found nearly every message to consist of support for Trump, condemnation of liberals, or something racist or xenophobic. Torba insists that there’s actually a lot of non-alt-right dialogue going on and that its appeal is global. And in fact, he says, there are many users from Canada, Poland, India, and other countries (he adds that Gab is "going viral" in India right now) but many of them were also sharing conservative views. The Canadian users seem to love Trump as much as the Americans, and many other international users really loved to share conservative memes. Although I did find a small and tight-knit contingent of Indians who discussed local politics.

Torba claims that posts about Trump and conservative views are so dominant on Gab because trending topics is a broken science. "People see what’s trending and they create that content and tag that content," he says. "That’s why you’re seeing those same trends at the top." It’s a dynamic problem of how trending works, and doesn’t reflect what the users are actually talking about, says Torba. But most posts I saw were very politically charged and seemed to reflect a very baseline and homogeneous reactionary ethos. Torba admits that the core user base "happens to be right now the folks on the right." He goes on to say that he hopes people on the left join in and then they too will be heard and free to speak. One way to do that would be to get a major liberal influencer to join in and contribute content. "If we get one major person on the left," he says, "Rachel Maddow, for example," then her followers would likely join and perhaps balance out the current narrow stream of ideologies. "That’s our goal," he says.
Strategizing On How To "Harass The Critics Of Trump"

Call it free speech but some of Gab’s most prominent users are intent on harassment, in their own words. Take one of the most popular Gabbers, Ricky Vaughn. He had a very large following on Twitter with the alt-right community—he’s a proud white nationalist who has publicly called for racial separatism. On Gab, he’s been using a hashtag called #TwitterTerror, which aims to create a culture war on that platform. He calls for Gab users to create anonymous temporary Twitter accounts just to "harass the critics of Trump." When people like Torba say that harassment is subjective, it’s difficult to couple that with posts that actively call for users to harass.

Though Torba insists that Gab is a place where people considered trolls on Facebook and Twitter can actively discuss their views without fear of suppression, there’s an insidious side to that type of "filter bubble." It can also serve as a planning ground for these users to start online "warfare" with their online enemies.

As for plans to scale up Gab, Torba cited a number of monetization models including influencer networks, premium subscriptions, and a few other tricks. Torba adds that in the last 30 days the site has raised $25,000 thanks to user donations. But the major hurdle is gaining real user traction. Remember Ello? Its closed beta growth was much bigger than Gab's when it originally launched in 2014 (Ello's founder said it received 4,000 signups an hour during its peak). It also attracted a few core user groups. These users—namely finance Twitterers and artists—stayed on the platform for a bit until ultimately going back to their old social media ways.

While there certainly is a core user base on Gab, and some are people who genuinely feel disenfranchised by sites like Twitter for whatever reason, they inhabit a very specific world and share similar views, and it’s hard to imagine left-leaning influencers wanting to join the fray. Calling Rachel Maddow—are you interested in Gabbing?

The major thing that these people who've had their accounts shut down, as well as anyone else in the future who might have the same happen to them need to realize is that there's no point in anchoring yourself to a specific internet platform and rather than whining about the bans/suspensions they need to just take it with a grin and move elsewhere, being agile and adaptable is far preferable to being a crybaby. Don't expect tolerance and always be ready to jump ship and start from scratch.

[Docturphil]

LGBT is a protected class, right-wing is not. (shrug)

Why is everyone just referring to them as "right-wing" anyways? They should at the very least be referred to as "extreme right-wing" or "far right". Most "right-wing" people are not hateful and/or racist just as most "left-wing" people are not communists. There should be a clear distinction being made.

[Balir]

Love him or hate him, the one thing Trump was 100% correct on was the medias bias during this election. Twitter is now a form of media.

What I want from the media, from good reporters and journalists is THE WHOLE UNEDITED, UNSLANTED STORY. Research your facts, corroborate them, get the other side of the story, corroborate their story and report everything. Do not favour one side over the other because it doesn't support your views or political allegiance.

So, in view of that, Twitter HAS to cut both ways in this. If only one side gets punished for their 'talk', then Twitter needs to have a good long look at themselves. There have been protesters holding signs calling for the raping of Trump's wife and children at rallies outside his buildings. If those same people are saying the same via Twitter, Twitter had better of banned them already.....

....It has to cut both ways.

[Deleted]

Love him or hate him, the one thing Trump was 100% correct on was the medias bias during this election. Twitter is now a form of media.

What I want from the media, from good reporters and journalists is THE WHOLE UNEDITED, UNSLANTED STORY. Research your facts, corroborate them, get the other side of the story, corroborate their story and report everything. Do not favour one side over the other because it doesn't support your views or political allegiance.

So, in view of that, Twitter HAS to cut both ways in this. If only one side gets punished for their 'talk', then Twitter needs to have a good long look at themselves. There have been protesters holding signs calling for the raping of Trump's wife and children at rallies outside his buildings. If those same people are saying the same via Twitter, Twitter had better of banned them already.....

....It has to cut both ways.

Unless you're suggesting that the liberal media edited trump's speeches and interviews we did see the whole story. I mean I do think that in general there is a liberal media bias (which I do not believe is a bad thing it's just people deciding what they consider socially acceptable and indeed is free speech in action.) but the best argument against trump was just whatever was coming out of his mouth.

Not to mention twitter was a huge platform for him throughout the campaign.

[Addict]

personally I dont care what twitter does with their platform, its theirs and they can do what they want with it. what im hoping for thou is that they're honest and straight forward about it; if they dont want right wing people there, just say so and take the backlash - create a progressive space if thats what they desire. Im not entirely sold on their stated reasons so far, as it isnt as much "hate speech", as it is "whos saying nasty things about what group", and thats something i personally dislike. if you're gonna ban people for hate sppech and racist slurs and whatnot, do it across the board.

[Muadiib]

They are cracking down on anyone with even remotely conservative views because they are the new fascists. I recommend anyone that actually respects free speech to move to gab https://gab.ai/

[Venant]

As in people of certain minority groups are more likely to be attacked, killed or to commit suicide than other groups, relative to their populations. People face different struggles. The state should recognise that and help each group in the relevant ways.

The problem with this is that you cannot assign rights to groups, you can only assign privileges, and such privileges are not inalienable in the way universal human rights are. People want to tear down what they call 'white privilege' today, but how do you know that tomorrow they won't be coming to tear down 'LGBTQ privilege'?

The state really is like a giant steamroller, and helping an individual person is like performing surgery, and steamrollers aren't very good at surgery. The best the state can do is to not restrict individual rights so that people can help other people or help themselves.

[DeadmanWalking]

Why is everyone just referring to them as "right-wing" anyways? They should at the very least be referred to as "extreme right-wing" or "far right". Most "right-wing" people are not hateful and/or racist just as most "left-wing" people are not communists. There should be a clear distinction being made.

I'm an independant myself but if the Alt-Right was calling themselves the Alt-Independent I would spend a few minutes vomiting and then declare myself a Neutralist, anything to get as far away from sharing a part of a name with a group like that. I feel for good conservative people who get shoe horned in by this group merely because they call themselves the alt-right. I live in the south and I know a lot of conservatives and I know they are not bad people, they just have a different political perspective from democrats and different opinions on how things should be. I like some democrat stuff and some conservative stuff, there is stuff in both I don't like.

Mind you I am a white christian male but that alt-right social agenda makes me feel dirty just being around it. I've kicked a couple alt-right out of my home before at new years and I will do it again. I'll not let that darken my doorstep.

[beingmused]

You do realize that your argument is the same rationale used for locking up homosexuals and lobotomizing promiscuous women? I could replace 'ban hate speech' with 'stone adulterers to death' and you would be making the argument used in many parts of the world today.

Also: appeal to authority/popularity

.....What? No. Someone could say those things, but there's no rational link from human rights to stoning people to death. Words have meaning.

Listen, the very nature of democracy is that each and every single human being is of equal inherent worth. That means that attempts to oppress, harass, or take away the opportunities of people because of some arbitrary aspect of their identity are inherently anti-democratic. Resisting hate speech is a necessary and logical conclusion from what it means to be American. There is zero viable justification at any point for someone to take that basis and then say "but screw homosexuals, they don't deserve the same treatment as me." So just because someone can say those words, doesn't mean it has any viability.

[Jilor]

It blows my mind how many times people quoted the LGBT is a protected class guy with zero fact checking and in fact continued quoting it and ignoring how patently wrong that is. LGBT is not a protected class in America. Exactly 22 of our 50 states protect the rights of the LGB community and 20 of those 22 protect the T community. In fact, of our 10 most populous states, only California, New York and Illinois offer ANY LGBT protect. Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan do not. Those 7 states account for over 100M of America's 318M people who are not protected by state or federal law. This is why the vast majority of the LGBT community is scared. They are not safe or protected. They are quite the opposite. The vast majority are not protected outside of a handful of cities within their own states (add North Carolina removing the ability for cities to pass anti-LGBT protections and Texas having a similar bill on the docket for the 2017 legislative session and it is looking like more LGBT Americans will be losing rights than gaining them in the next four years). This is why continually quoting a clearly false comment can be harmful. The LGBT community has a long battle ahead and people think the war already ended.

[DeadmanWalking]

They are cracking down on anyone with even remotely conservative views because they are the new fascists. I recommend anyone that actually respects free speech to move to gab https://gab.ai/

Your right to free speech extends to you having the right to speak and your government can't punish you for it. There is no freedom of speech from the overreach of website providers. You are not protected from companies punishing you for not behaving according to the rules you agreed to.

If you are going to go around banging the drum of your freedoms you need to spend a little time learning what your freedoms are.
1. The freedom of speech only protects you from your government acting to silence you.
2. Companies are not government.
3. The internet covers the planet, the entire planet does not enjoy the freedom of speech.
4. The internet is not America.
5. The consitution protections do not extend to the internet.
6. You can't tell your boss on facebook that he is a shit head and then claim freedom of speech when he fires you. Your government can't imprison you for saying Obama sucks, or Trump sucks.

You guys like to believe the world is against you and you are the victims because it is infinitely easier for you to justify victimizing others when you have convinced yourself that you are the actual victim in any situation.

But by all means, I have no problem with people using the exit door to go spread this type of message on another website. Bottle it all up over there.

- - - Updated - - -

That is false. We've had this discussion a dozen times before.
Being an illegal immigrant is not a crime.

Don't care about what you think, your friends are being shut down on Twitter.
Facebook is next and then we'll see where it goes.

Frankly I don't have a problem with this, as Hate groups have become emboldened to step out of the shadows they will draw more attention and they will face the consequences of being socially undesireable. The sooner this happens the sooner they are exposed for what they are and society will deal them consequences. Hopefully they will return to the shadows where they belong.